Golf: Bullying barbs harm young golfer

Paige Spiranac of the United States. Photo / AP

Paige Spiranac is in Dubai preparing for the Ladies Masters, but she had other things on her mind besides golf.

The 23-year-old has become famous as much for her social media presence as her ability to hit a golf ball. She has 861,000 Instagram followers and 103,000 followers on Twitter, regularly posting photos and videos to keep her fans informed of how she's travelling.

But while there's plenty of love for her, there's also plenty of hate.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of her next tournament, one reporter asked Spiranac about the abuse she copped following a disappointing performance in her professional debut in a Ladies European Tour event last year. She missed the cut after shooting 77 and 79, then was ridiculed by keyboard warriors in the aftermath.

Clearly, the reaction to that performance still hurts Spiranac, whose emotional response in Dubai, delivered eloquently and articulately, would only have gained her more fans.

"They attack not only me but my parents, my family, my friends, and you know, they say I'm a disgrace to golf. It's really hard and I still get those comments and I still deal with it every day," Spiranac said as she broke down in tears.

"It's important for people to see how much it does affect me, and the things they call me.

"I feel like I was raised right by my parents, and for them to attack my parents and attack what I'm doing, it's really difficult. I struggled with a lot of depression after it, because as a 22-year-old [in 2015], you feel like you're not worth anything, you feel worthless and no matter what you do it's never going to be good enough.

"To have these people say that I'm not a good golfer, I'm not a good person, I'm promiscuous, or make these judgments about me that aren't true, it's really hard.

"It sounds so foolish, but you never know what that person is going through in their life."

Following her first professional outing last year she took a three-week hiatus from all social media and even contemplated quitting the sport. A media minder suggested Spiranac quit the press conference but she stayed, not wanting to change the topic. She was determined to get her message across, saying raising awareness about online bullying was far more important than how many birdies she shot this week.

"Teenage suicide rates are up right now, and they think it's because of cyber bullying," Spiranac said.

"If I can share my story and I'm OK with being emotional about it and I'm OK with expressing what happened to me ... people don't realise how hard it really was on me.

"People were threatening my life and saying the world is better off without me. People don't see that side of it.

"It doesn't matter how I play this week, it really doesn't. But the fact that I'm here and I'm sharing my story, hopefully can save someone's life. I think that's so much more important than if I make the cut or miss the cut."

After that line, reporters broke in to applause for the impressive youngster.

"No one ever talks about it, they really don't. Cyber bullying is a really huge problem and no one ever discusses it. It's no longer funny, it's not the cool thing to do to make fun of other people."